A resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made inroads into Odisha, and was seen leading in nine of the 21 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, till latest voting trends emerged.
The party — leading in 22 of the 146 polled Assembly constituencies — could have, at best, secured three Lok Sabha seats, but split voting is set to buttress its numbers in Parliament.
The BJP, the key challenger to the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha, had also profited from split voting in the state’s three-tier panchayat elections earlier, where it performed exceptionally well, giving a scare to the BJD and dislodging the Congress as the main Opposition.
Riding on the split voting phenomenon, the BJP is seemingly narrowing the gap with the redoubtable BJD, which had whitewashed Opposition in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, bagging 20 of the 21 seats.
In the run-up to the 2019 elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President Amit Shah and a posse of national party leaders had campaigned extensively against the BJD to improve its tally in Odisha.
In Bhubaneswar, which topped the Smart City list, Aparajita Sarangi (BJP) is maintaining a lead of over 18,100 votes over her nearest competitor Arup Patnaik of the BJD. Bhubaneswar is billed as the battle of civil servants, with Sarangi, a former IAS officer, taking on the superannuated IPS officer Patnaik. Another superannated IPS officer Prakash Mishra (BJP), too, is staring at defeat with BJD’s sitting MP from Cuttack Bhartruhari Mahtab, maintaining a solid lead of around 60,000.
Kendrapara, considered the pocket borough of the BJD, may be retained by the regional party. The constituency has turned out to be a battle of prestige both for the BJP and the BJD after Baijayant Panda, aka Jay Panda, once a BJD loyalist, switched to the BJP. Film star Anubhav Mohanty is pitted against Panda.
In Puri, BJD’s MP Pinakhi Mishra was leading against the BJP’s suave spokesperson Sambit Patra.
The BJP is also leading in Bolangir, Kalahandi, Sambalpur, Sundargarh and Bargarh, the other key Lok Sabha constituencies in the state's western hinterland.